


Manage to keep safe skin

by meeks00



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-14
Updated: 2010-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 17:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meeks00/pseuds/meeks00
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not that Ray wanted to be caught in this secret gay love affair he and Hasser have going on here, but he'd have thought <i>someone</i> would have noticed <i>something</i> by now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Manage to keep safe skin

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Boy & Bear’s “Mexican Mavis.” I wrote! Randomly! Stuff I didn’t mean to write! :)

When he started fucking around with Hasser once they got back stateside, Ray thought for a long while that someone was going to instigate the Marine Corps version of the Salem Witch Trials, or something like a great big shoot out in the middle of the practice yard with sideline KA-BAR knife fights.

He thought everything would go to shit, and they’d be outed in front of everybody, and Walt would possibly cry a little bit. It would be the biggest production that the Marine Corps — nay, that _America_ had ever seen.

Instead, it was easy enough to keep on carrying on with no one the wiser.

Ray got to take his time and map out the terrain of Walt’s Iraq-induced farmer’s tan with his fingertips and his lips and his tongue. They stayed indoors until they were both pale from head-to-toe. And they stayed indoors longer still until pale skin became marred by ridges of pink bite marks and kisses turned into purple bruises, all like a jungle of geographical scars to mark this new territory.

They explained to everyone else that their seclusion was due to having epic Xbox _Halo_ marathon battles.

No one ever doubted epic Xbox _Halo_ marathon battles. Especially when they’d all just gotten back stateside and were finishing up their terms on base with not much to do but fuck around. In Ray and Walt’s case, though, that was a pretty literal description right there.

After a while, things became almost normal. They did their PT with the others, went out for drinks, and bummed around all over the place — all without acting like awkward idiots with a secret. And no USMC/American Witch Trial of the new millennium ever occurred.

Ray never even had to curb his enthusiasm outside of the bedroom because, honestly, he was always in other people’s personal space and already had a track record of dry humping Walt’s neck in public. In theater even. Doing so out of theater was no fuckin’ big deal as far as anyone was concerned.

But still.

It’s not that Ray wanted to be caught in this secret gay love affair he and Hasser had going on here, but he'd have thought _someone_ would have noticed _something_ by now.

__

“You totally think our secret gay love affair is boring,” Walt said, laughing.

How he could beat Ray at King of the Hill on _Halo_ while laughing his fool ass off was still a mystery. A goddamn annoying mystery.

“You are such a motherfuckin’ attention whore, Person.”

“I’m definitely an attention whore,” Ray replied. “That’s not the point. The point is — I just — how the hell has no one noticed? Seriously. We’re the best-trained Marine Corps killers out there, trained especially to _observe._ Even Colbert, with his freaky eyes in the back of his head and also on his shoulders or whatever else, hasn’t noticed. I’m a little disappointed in the supposed greatness of this fine American military institution we belong to.”

Walt continued to thrash him on screen, saying, “Maybe no one cares.” Ray threw down his controller. “Hey! I’m not done pwning your ass. Pick that shit back up.”

“I don’t want to play anymore,” Ray said stubbornly, tugging off his headset. “And what do you mean, ‘maybe no one cares’? We’re like, the fuckin’ romance of the goddamn century! A modern day Romeo and Juliet! And for that comment, you’re Juliet, you little bitch.” He walked over to stand in front of the TV and leaned over every time Walt tried to see the screen around him.

“Ray, just because you suck at this game doesn’t mean everyone else does,” Walt said distractedly. “Move over so I can beat the leftover thirteen year olds at this until they cry.”

Ray held up one finger in front of Walt’s face. “Listen. One, we’ve gone gay for each other. We overcame the heavenly calling of _pussy_ , Walt. Two, hello, we’re Marines. We’re hotass motherfuckers. Three, DADT! We risk, I don’t know, living in disgrace in the eyes of the military forever if we’re found out. Four, this is some romantic shit we got goin’ on. And five, we have the best sex in the universe, obviously. I bet we blind everyone with our post-coital afterglows.”

Walt set down his controller and pulled off his own headset with a sigh. Then he looked at the palm Ray shoved into his face. “You tackled me into my truck,” he said, nudging the hand away and looking up at him. “Not exactly the most romantic gesture in the world. You’re lucky I like you, Ray, otherwise I might have killed you.”

“You loved me the moment you met me,” Ray said, dismissing that with a wave of his hand. “My milkshake brought you to the _yard_ , homes.”

Walt stood up slowly, and he wasn’t that much taller than Ray, but he had this way of making his shoulders look broader than they were; had a way of turning those big ol’ baby blues of his into ice-cold, fuckin’ scary eyes; and when he wasn’t grinning brightly like he always was, he kind of looked like he wanted to fuck a guy up in one hundred and seventy nine different ways.

Ray was familiar with every sharp curve of muscle on the man’s body. Walt most certainly _could_ fuck somebody up one hundred and seventy nine different ways if he wanted to.

“I might have killed you,” Walt repeated evenly. “You’re lucky I like you.”

Ray stared.

And he nodded in agreement because what the fuck else was a guy supposed to do when Walt — precious sun child of the great tongue and tight ass from the golden wheat fields of Taylorstown, Virginia, that he was — turned into a stone-cold badass motherfucker in an instant like that?

Then Walt grinned, and it was all good again, like the clouds parting.

 _Jesus._

Ray stared some more and poked Walt’s nose to make sure he was normal again. Then he demanded, “No more _Halo_ , even for the sake of covering up our illicit romance. You have to take me into the bedroom immediately and make up for whatever the fuck that scary, hot, hot shit was.”

“Attention whore,” Walt replied fondly, slinging an arm around Ray’s shoulder.

But he did take Ray into the bedroom, and he did make up for being insanely sexy and scary hot, so Ray didn’t think Walt really minded the attention whore bit all that much.

__

If there was someone Ray wanted to finally take on, it would probably be Trombley.

So, the next day, fresh from having the best sex in the universe, _again_ , Ray searched around base until he finally found and cornered his favorite little psycho away from any sort of firearm.

Ray was pretty confident in his hand-to-hand combat skills, but just because he was a more than competent Marine didn’t mean he wanted to get into any shoot outs.

“Hey hey hey.”

“What,” Trombley said as Ray came closer.

“Aw, James. I just want to have a little chat. You know you’re gonna miss riding around Iraq with your ol’ pal Ray-Ray when you head home to your hot mamacita and little James, Jr. I bet they don’t even know any Avril songs. Maybe I’ll send you a self-recorded mix tape.”

Trombley looked at him stoically, probably with what he thought of as his Brad expression. “What do you want, Corporal Person.”

“Just a chat, like I said. You should listen more closely, young James,” Ray said. “How about some guy talk. You hear any gossip lately?”

Trombley eyed him with that direct stare he had. “Gossip?”

“Yeah. Anything from the grapevine?”

Trombley glanced away. “I’m not saying anything about homosexuals,” he said stiffly.

Ray looked at him strangely. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Trombley said. Then he walked carefully around Ray instead of sulkily bumping shoulders like he usually did.

Ray looked after him in disappointment. Well, that was an utter failure. Not even one pissed off comment. He must be losing his touch.

This meant he therefore had no choice but to go around and put out his subtle feelers to a few of the other guys.

“If you knew two Marines who were gay for each other, what would you do about it?” he asked.

“Come on, Person,” Espera replied, folding his arms defensively across his chest. “You tryin’ to get my ass kicked here? It’s like you do this shit for fun.”

“It ain’t for me to say, brah,” Lilley said in that easy way he had. Then he quickly added, “Not that I got a problem with it or anything. ‘Cause I don’t.”

Baptista just grinned, flicking his fingers in a brief wave before taking off with a, “Tchau.”

And all T would say was, “I don’t have an interest in discussing this with you, Ray.”

Finally, Ray decided to just man up and confront the last Marine standing who he didn’t think would let him down as shittily as the others did.

__

“Do you notice anything different about me?” he asked while they were at lunch downtown.

Brad glanced up from his burger, eyeing Ray’s face carefully. “Ketchup, mustard, mayo, and — Christ, Ray,” he said, voice sounding tired, “is that jelly all over your goddamn face too?”

Ray swiped a finger over his chin and stared at the colorful mishmash of sauces. Then he stuck his finger in his mouth. “Huh. Yeah. It’s grape. I’d bet on…Smuckers.” He grinned.

Brad turned his focus back to his meal. “No. I notice nothing different.”

Ray licked his lips and then tugged at the collar of his tee. He knew there was a purple bruise where his neck met shoulder. That was a good one. Walt sucked that one on him just last night. If anyone noticed, it would be Brad.

Not that Ray would go around flaunting his hickeys like trophies or anything. This one just happened to be right there for the world to see when he tugged on his collar. And he definitely wouldn’t accidentally show it to just anyone who might try to shoot his ass up, of course.

Brad would probably tell him to use protection so Walt didn’t get Ray’s imaginary STDs. They were cool like that, he and Brad.

But Brad didn’t look up, just kept eating his burger — careful, clean bite after careful, clean bite.

“Seriously, Colbert,” Ray finally burst out in disgust. “You and your Iceman eyes are a disappointment to the entire fuckin’ Marine Corps.”

Now _that_ had Brad’s head snapping up, eyes focusing directly on Ray. That was more like it — and not, as Walt would probably suggest, because Ray was an attention whore.

“What did you say to me?” Brad asked. If Trombley thought he could ever imitate that expression, that psycho was delusional. More so than usual.

“Um,” Ray replied.

Brad set his burger down. “Straighten your goddamn shirt, Person,” he snapped.

“No need to get prissy,” Ray muttered, but he immediately complied.

“You keep trying to set Hasser off on everybody just to get your nuts off, and they’re going to collectively beat your ass. You need to stop this. Now.”

Ray felt his face go slack in surprise. “Say what? Walt? Why would Walt go off on anybody?”

Brad looked him over for a long moment before closing his eyes and sighing. “You are the most messed up hick — I don’t — I don’t even understand how you’re still alive.”

Ray smiled at Brad’s woeful, ‘I’ve lost the will to survive’ tone. Brad was such a drama queen sometimes. “I’m a self-sufficient human being,” Ray said.

“I meant that I’m surprised no one has murdered you yet.”

“What are you talking about?” Ray asked with a laugh. “Everyone loves me. I’m delightful.”

Brad threw his napkin down over the remains of his burger and pushed up to a stand. “Talk it over with your Xbox partner, Ray.” Then he walked off.

Ray watched him go in bemusement, but he finished his burger before he left too. No point wasting a perfectly good meal like that, even if grape jelly somehow got all over it.

__

“Hi, Ray,” Walt greeted when Ray got home that evening.

“You’re early,” Ray said, pleased.

“We need to talk.”

Ray felt his pleased feelings slip away.

Walt wasn’t grinning, but at least he didn’t have that super scary, albeit fuckin’ sexy mad hot, expression on his face.

“I don’t want to talk,” Ray said. “Let’s fuck instead. How ’bout it, tiger?” He made his way around Walt and headed toward the bedroom, beginning to shuck his clothes onto the floor.

“Are you _tryin’_ to get us in trouble?” Walt asked, following him. “Or are you really just _that_ starved for drama and attention?”

“Psh. That’s crazy talk, that is. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“So you didn’t deliberately try to out us to James, Tony, Jason, Leandro, T, and Brad? All in one day?”

Ray laughed and stopped tugging on his fly. “No. I thought they might have an inkling or something, but they didn’t even suspect a thing! I was so disappointed in all of them, Walt. You don’t even know.” He paused. “Though, Brad did say something weird.”

He turned around and looked at Walt, who stood in the doorway, his shoulders tense as if his mood was halfway between that scary place that kind of really got Ray off and the normal, adorable Walt way.

“Did you threaten everybody or something?” he asked carefully.

“Yes!” Walt exclaimed. “I did! I had to! And you’re ruining everything!”

“Wow. OK,” Ray said, lowering his voice and holding his hands out. “C’mere.”

Walt stayed where he was for a moment, rubbing his knuckles across his forehead. Then he came over and let Ray slip his hands around his waist. “I wasn’t gonna let everyone be assholes about it, or mess this up,” he said quietly.

“So you told them to fuck off? Like, in some sort of preemptive fuck off attack?” Ray asked, trying to wrap his head around it.

“Kind of,” Walt replied, dropping his forehead into Ray’s shoulder.

“Huh. My Juliet is a major BAMF.”

“Shut up,” Walt muttered into his neck, but he shuffled a bit closer.

Ray smoothed his hair back. “So…everyone actually knows about us?”

“The ones who matter do.”

Ray thought about that, about everyone pointedly ignoring the truly fantastic love bites that he put all over Walt’s skin, the way they all tried not to even look at him, probably because they were blinded by his afterglow every morning and at midday and before dinner. It was all starting to make sense.

“And…they’re all OK with it?”

“They’d better be,” Walt replied, lifting his head to look Ray in the eye, his voice dropping into that kind of scary, cold voice that simultaneously made Ray’s balls shrink up a little and his dick twitch.

“Ah,” Ray said. “Right. I see.”

“Do you?” Walt asked, voice going back to normal, even though he sounded harried again like before. “Do you really, Ray? Because I thought you understood earlier, and look how that turned out. My cell rang off the hook all day with the guys sayin’ you were gonna out us by accident and it wasn’t their fault.”

Ray laughed. “You scare them that bad, Hasser?” he asked, feeling pretty fucking proud.

Walt tried to stamp down on a grin, but Ray could see the crinkles in the corners of his eyes where it always started. He was beginning to understand those smiles like he was learning about the planes of Walt’s body.

“Who, me?” Walt said, raising his brows and swiping his tongue at the corner of his mouth. “’Course not. I’m the fuckin’ nice guy.”

“Sure," Ray said with a laugh. "Sure you are.”

Walt frowned, his smile seeping over the rest of his face until his lips twitched. “What, you don’t believe me?”

Ray tugged him closer. “Why don't you show me?”

So Walt did. And if Ray still felt the need to mark his way over Walt's body with landmarks, ridges of sharp love bites and lazily sucked kisses turned into bruises across pale skin, well, that was just because Ray liked mapping out his territory.

  
 _fin_   



End file.
